Turkey’s not-so-hidden agenda

Turkey’s military deployment in Bashiqa, near Mosul, Iraq, on Dec. 3, provoked another self-imposed crisis for the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

This column reported two weeks ago that Turkey was more isolated than ever following its shooting down of a Russian fighter jet on Nov. 24. But once in a hole, it seems, Erdogan cannot stop digging. The military deployment of 400 troops and 25 tanks to a Turkish training camp for Iraqi and Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces in Bashiqa to battle the Islamic State (IS) was considered by Baghdad as beyond the scope of "training." Semih Idiz suggests that Turkey’s deployment was a likely attempt by Erdogan “to establish a Sunni sphere of influence in and around Mosul.” Metin Gurcan adds that in addition to seeking to “be among the key actors to decide on the future of Mosul,” Turkey is seeking to balance Iranian influence and “is particularly uneasy with the PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] gains in Iraq and Syria. Turkey wants to militarily dominate the Shengal region, which has been a bridge between the PKK and the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Party [PYD] in Syria, to cripple that link.”

The Turkish action elicited a formal protest from the Iraqi government and provoked a wave of denunciations and demonstrations led by Iraq’s Shiite political parties and militias, including a condemnation from Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq’s most influential Shiite cleric. Fehim Tastekin reports that “among Iraqi political circles, Turkey’s policies are held responsible for the fall of Mosul and empowerment of IS.”